William Lewis Manly

Death Valley in '49 . William Lewis Manly

Death Valley '49ers were a group of pioneers from the Eastern United States that endured a long and difficult journey during the late 1840s California Gold Rush to prospect in the Sutter's Fort area of the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada in California. Their route from Utah went through the Great Basin Desert in Nevada, and Death Valley and the Mojave Desert in Southern California, in attempting to reach the Gold CountrySouth of present-day Provo, Utah, Manly joined other Forty-niners traveling to southern California. In December, these pioneers became lost in the Great Basin Desert, and entered Death Valley having followed an inaccurate map for three weeks. Their food supplies were almost exhausted, and the oxen pulling their wagons were dying of starvation. Manly and his associate John Haney Rogers trekked 250 miles on foot across the Mojave Desert to Rancho San Fernando near Los Angeles, California to scout an evacuation route for the families trapped in Death Valley. There, they procured food and horses from Mexican villagers and were able to save their party by leading them to Rancho San Francisco.